Location-Based Mobile Marketing is Where It's at for Consumers

The ability for mobile devices to track and report a person’s location in real time with a reliable degree of accuracy has come into its own. The tendency of consumers to use that feature is increasing in popularity, as well.

“74% of adult smartphone owners ages 18 and older say they use their phone to get directions or other information based on their current location,” according to the Pew Institute

Use of a geolocation feature is more than a nice-to-have option on a smartphone or tablet — its use has become a routine part of a consumer’s daily life and representing a significant market share of the U.S. buying population as U.S. smartphone penetration at 74% and rising.

Geo-Location Tied To Consumer Behavior

What’s especially interesting to marketers is that, aside from seeking directions to specific place, geolocation-enabled activities are most often directly related to consumer-related behavior. Whether it’s looking for a good place to grab a drink or researching a specific product in a retail store, customers have come to rely on their mobile devices as vital sources of information upon which they make an increasing number of decisions about how to spend their time and money.

Trend reports also show an interesting tipping point, consumers are now more likely to “check out” information that’s related to their current location rather than share or “check in” with their current status.

Checking Out Info, Rather Than Checking In

 There is a decrease in activity for check-in services such as Foursquare and Facebook and an increase in consumers’ preference for marketers to nudge or push relevant, personalized content to their devices in real time. Alert-based ads and product information fit this appetite for content well and provide genuine value to consumers.

In fact, a whopping 72% of consumers say they will respond to calls-to-action in marketing messages they receive within sight of the retailer. With only 23% of retail marketers using some type of geotargeted data in their mobile marketing, there is a huge opportunity to give customers what they want when they want it.

Data-driven geolocation notifications represent a major evolution point from in-store displays that encouraged users to text to opt-in to sweeps or promotions or email promos delivered based on a promotional calendar.

Incentives With Alerts

Some of the most popular mobile geolocation-centered campaigns involve couponing, but not all. Special gifts, alerts to flash sales and early access are also popular incentives that tend to have the pleasant side effect of driving customer loyalty. Many of the most effective incentive-based campaign include some type of alert.

For those marketers that are ahead of the location-based marketing curve (as many fast food marketers are), there’s a new, more hard-hitting strategy known as geo-conquesting. This is a form of geo-fencing where marketers target competitors’ locations with their own aggressive offers. This is another reason for marketers to plan and implement a solid location-based mobile marketing strategy — if they don’t, they risk losing market share to mobile-savvy competitors.

Source: www.marketingland.com by Lynn Baus